Aug. 29 marks the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. To honor the occasion, Slate is publishing four memoirs of surviving the storm by students at O. Perry Walker Charter High School, one of the first public high schools in New Orleans to reopen after the storm. Like many others, these teenagers remained in the city during the storm, hoping to wait it out, but were forced to leave in chaotic circumstances after the levees broke and the city flooded. By January, all four had returned. They and their families are now living on the Westbank, an area largely unscathed by the flooding. These memoirs were written in their high school English class last spring.
Vickey Brown, 16. Before Hurricane Katrina, she lived in the B.W. Cooper (Calliope) Project in central New Orleans.
On Aug. 28, 2005, the day before the storm, I woke up real early to get some last-minute stuff from the store. As I walked to Safeway I started to think about what might happen tomorrow. “What if I don’t make it through? Will I survive? Is it the last time I will be able to see the light of day?” When I got home I turned to Channel 6 news to see where they were evacuating to. My mom came over to see if I wanted to come to the Convention Center where she worked.
“No, I’m not going, so I’m a stay here with my grandma.”
“Why aren’t you coming?”
“I don’t want to leave my grandma alone. I got to stay. She needs me.”
I could see in my mama’s eyes that she didn’t want me to stay there, but she let me because she knew how I felt toward my grandma.
“I want to stay too,” my little brother Kendrick yelled.
My other brother Kendall’s face looked puzzled, but he still went along with my mom. She gave us some groceries so we wouldn’t be hungry or anything. Then my mom told us, “I love y’all,” and went on to the Convention Center.
The rest of the day my brother and me spent most of our time together as if it was the last day we were going to see each other alive. We watched movies, played sports, and just chilled like old times. That night, about 11:30 p.m., all the lights went out and the wind was blowing real hard.
About that time my uncle Fen came over to stay with us for the storm. It was so hot in that house. My whole body was sweating like the walls when you have been cooking all day. When the rain started it didn’t make it any better. It was still hot and I was sticky. I couldn’t sleep. I was so tired, but my eyes wouldn’t close. I stood in the living room and watched the rain come down while the others slept peacefully. The rain wasn’t that bad; it was just the wind all day and night that did most of the damage.
On Aug. 30, the morning after the storm, the sun was out and shining like a hurricane had never passed. Only thing that was wrong was that they had a lot of trees and tree limbs all over. You barely could walk up the street. My brother and I went to see what was going on outside. When we began to walk we saw a whole bunch of people.
“Man, look at all these people, it looks like a parade out here!” I said.
“I know, huh, let’s go look around and see what’s going on,” Kendrick said.
So we walked around, stepping over trees and tree branches. As we were walking through the projects we saw people with baskets and garbage cans full of stuff.
“Where they getting all that stuff from, oh! They stealing from out them people stores,” I said. My brother’s mouth dropped and he was staring at all the things that were going on. We both just shook our heads.
“Man, those people are crazy,” Kendrick said, with a smirk on his face.
We both walked back to the house to tell my grandma what was going on. She started laughing out loud.
“Are you serious? They crazy, huh,” I started laughing too.
Next thing you know a woman came in the driveway screaming, “They letting people get food and stuff from Winn-Dixie, it’s free!”
So everybody scrammed from the porch and headed to Winn-Dixie. I went in and told my grandma what was going on and asked her can I go.
She said, “Yeah, you can go.” My brother, my uncle, my daddy’s girlfriend, and I all grabbed some bags and started hiking up to Winn-Dixie. When we got down there, there was a parking lot full of people. I was scared to go in because there was so much going on. Many people were getting hurt. They were running over people going wild and crazy.
“I’m going in, hear Vickey, do you want something?” my brother asked. My uncle Fen had already gone in to get some things.
“No! I don’t want anything, just be careful and try not to fall down.” So he went on into the building and came out with a whole lot of junk food.
“What’s going on in there? Why you just came back with junk?” I asked.
“Man, it was dark in there. I couldn’t see a thing. So I just grabbed anything I can get and got the hell out of there. Anyways there was too much water on the floor. I wasn’t going in the back and get bust in the head or fall and bust my ass, girl, is you crazy?”
“Oh, well, don’t go back in there. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.” So we walked to the neutral ground and stood there watching everybody scrambling all around taking stuff. My uncle Fen came out of Winn-Dixie with some chips, candy, and cold drinks.
“Y’all come over here and help me carry this s___ home,” my uncle said in a tired voice. We just shook our heads and looked at each other.
“OK, we’ll help you with it,” we replied. Man, those trays were heavy. I was struggling trying to carry them. As we were walking down the street we heard sirens go off and a loud voice out the microphone screaming, “Drop everything and leave the parking lot!” Everybody was running and screaming, “Let’s go!” with their few groceries in their hands.
The walk back home was very tiresome and scary. There were power lines all on the ground, and so much trash and mud you could hardly walk. When I got home, I heard my neighbors talking about some dude had gotten killed at Coleman’s trying to steal some goods. I sat stunned from what I heard and just shook my head and began unpacking the things my uncle brought home for us.
On Aug. 31, two days after the storm, we went outside to see that there was water all in the courtway. I was wondering, “Did a pipe break outside or something?”
But I heard someone say, “The water is backing up and I got to get the f___ out of here.” I was shocked and scared. I had to go see for myself. I walked off the porch and headed to Earhart Street. All you could see was water flying down the street. Some neighbors tried to stop it from going further by putting window screens and 2-by-4 boards all around trying to make the water go into the drain.
I really began to panic then, so I ran all the way home. I was yelling to my grandma, “We going to die, the water is flowing up the street and it looks like it is getting higher.” I began to cry.
“Well what can I do? Won’t you stop crying? It’s going to be OK,” my grandma replied. I was scared for my life.
Then my mom stormed in the door.
“Get only two outfits and some shoes,” my mama said in a scared voice.
“Mama, I don’t want to leave my grandma,” I said, crying.
“She can come too, I don’t want to leave her here either.”
So I went to my grandma’s room to ask her would she go with me. I got on my knees besides her and asked, “Grandma, come with us please, I don’t want to leave you here without me.”
“Girl, just go with ya mama, you hear me, now go on.”
My mom tried to convince her to go, too, but my grandma wouldn’t budge. Deep in my mind I was wondering what would happen to my grandma if I were to leave her. It hurt me to my heart to leave her, but I was too scared to stay.
As we passed the bridge on Claiborne and Earhart Boulevard we saw a dead man lying at the foot of the curb with a white sheet over his body. I looked at him with amazement because I had never seen a dead body before.
